Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA flagship infrared observatory launched on August 30, 2026, and traveling to operate near the Sun-Earth L2 point. Its wide-field surveys will investigate dark energy, map billions of galaxies, and discover exoplanets, while its coronagraph will demonstrate technologies for directly imaging planets and planet-forming disks.
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Identity
- Aliases
- Roman Space TelescopeRomanWide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST)
- Name
- Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
- Status
- active
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA flagship infrared observatory launched on August 30, 2026, and traveling to operate near the Sun-Earth L2 point. Its wide-field surveys will investigate dark energy, map billions of galaxies, and discover exoplanets, while its coronagraph will demonstrate technologies for directly imaging planets and planet-forming disks.
- Destination
- Quasi-halo orbit around the Sun–Earth L2 point, approximately 1.5 million km from Earth, for wide-field infrared surveys of dark energy and billions of galaxies, exoplanet discovery, and coronagraph technology demonstrations for directly imaging planets and planet-forming disks
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- Launched on 2026-08-30; on-orbit commissioning is underway. NASA reported the first Coronagraph Instrument observations on 2026-09-22 and 2026-09-27.
- Programs
- Start Date
- 2026-08-30
- Vehicle Families
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Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- April 26, 2026 at 14:53:08 UTC
- Updated Time
- October 6, 2026 at 09:01:26 UTC
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